On 7/21/17 8:57 AM, Stefan Seefeld via Boost wrote:
On 21.07.2017 10:21, Thomas Heller via Boost wrote:
* Improve the existing Boost.Build infrastructure to allow libraries to be built stand-alone. (I remember from discussing with Rene a year ago that he had some work in progress to achieve this, so I don't think this is particularly hard, at least not for someone understanding Boost.Build internals).
Hmmm - I don't see the problem here. In fact, I do it all the time! I cd to the libs/test directory and invoke b2 ... Then I take a bathroom break. When I come back, I find that a) the serialization library has been built b) those (and only ) those other libraries required for either the serialization library or it's tests have been built c) all the tests have been run d) since I include library_test, I have a html table detailing all the test results. In a word - this is already done has been for at least 15 years!
* Replace the top-level build logic to simply iterate over all libraries, invoking this stand-alone build logic.
Right - not hard to do. I once submitted shell script to do exactly that. Problem was, Rene has been too accommodating to boost developers and has permitted a number of them to make their own rules. This should be addressed in any case. In short, this is not a problem.
* With the above in place, it becomes possible to switch from Boost.Build to CMake one library at a time, so the original question can be reframed as "which library wants to switch from Boost.Build to CMake", which, I'm sure, will be much less disruptive (if at all) and non-controversial, as the people to decide will be project maintainers and communities.
Right - More than that, this is the only way such a transition is even possible.
Does this process appeal to anyone ?
I don't think anyone actually has a rational alternative.
Regards, Stefan
Robert Ramey